


long, long ago

by banjjakz



Series: into the woods [5]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Multi, Other, POV Second Person, Pining, Slow Burn, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, muriel is from your past!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 00:55:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20073466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banjjakz/pseuds/banjjakz
Summary: “Did we know each other, before? Before I...forgot.”All around you, the forest seems to freeze in place. Muriel included.





	long, long ago

**Author's Note:**

> gender neutral apprentice with no pronouns/parts specified for all your reader-insert needs! enjoy<3

There’s been something heavy weighing on your mind for a while now. You aren’t sure how to approach the subject without doing any damage. You aren’t sure how he’s going to take it.

But you need to know. And you’re tired of waiting.

You decide to take him on in his comfort zone, where you know he’s most comfortable. You bring some tea along, as well - a nice, calming herbal blend Asra had brought back from his latest excursion. Tea is always well-received, right? He’d seemed to really like it the last time you made a pot for him. Empress knows you’ll need all the good-graces you can scrounge together for this conversation.

As you walk up on him, he’s in the middle of giving the ladies their daily feed. They cluster around his thick-soled boots and holler at him for more, only settling when he finally brings down a handful of seed and scatters it evenly across the little clearing. 

Even from this distance you can see the ghost of a smile that haunts his lips. He really likes it, you think wonderingly, being amongst the creatures of the forest. Being amongst the forest in general. He belongs here.

Guilt winds tightly around your neck when you realize you’re about to disrupt his peaceful afternoon. 

“Muriel,” you call. “I’ve brought some tea!”

At your sudden outburst, he startles, but relaxes just as quickly once he realizes it is you who is calling out to him. He beckons you closer with a near-imperceptible incline of his head, and that’s all the invitation you need to join him by the chicken coop.

A log rests innocently by the side of his hut and you sit down heavily upon it, taking care that the bark doesn’t poke through the fabric of your garments. “Here. The brew’s your favorite.”

“I don’t have a favorite,” says Muriel, grabbing the flask from you like he’s a man dying of thirst.

It’s all you can do to tamp down on your laughter. “Right. Yes, of course.”

He plops down on the opposite end of the log. Uncorks the mouth of the flask and takes a sip. Stares at you from the side of his eye. Scoots closer. Coughs. Blinks out into the distance. Scoots closer. By the time he’s done fidgeting, your pinkies are brushing. 

The forest quietly thrums with life, the expanse of its seemingly endless canopy of branches and leaves beckoning you to speak your truth. It’s now or never. 

“I confess I’ve come bearing more than just afternoon tea.”

“I figured.” When you stare questioningly back at him, he elaborates: “It’s never ‘just’ anything, with you. Or Asra. You -- magicky types.”

Despite the nerves pressing in on you, you allow yourself a small smile at the mention of your master - and, at the fond way Muriel’s lips curve upwards, as though enchanted. “We’re not all that bad. Otherwise you couldn’t stand to have us around.”

He breaks eye contact. His cheeks are suspiciously pink. “Whatever.”

You spend a couple seconds staring at the way the grass and dirt shifts underneath your feet. Only a few meters away, the ladies trill in excitement as they play amongst each other; in the hut adjacent to you, Inanna is probably dozing by the fire, a fearsome predator domesticated and made tame by the sheer virtue of Muriel’s spirit.

It hits you, all of a sudden, how badly you would miss this --  _ all  _ of this -- should it be taken from you.

“Mur--” your voice is weak and splits in the middle. You must clear your throat and try once more. “Muriel. I’ve come to ask you a question.” He remains silent. “It may be hard to answer and you mightn’t want to answer at all, but I’m still going to ask if only for the sake of my sanity. Perhaps this time you’ll forgive my selfishness.”

You’re rambling now, driven on by the anxiety that churns in your gut. “It’s just -- been hounding me, relentlessly, and there are only so many clues I can gather from external sources. This may be the last thing you want to deal with right now, but I--”

“Stop.”

Almost immediately, you mouth falls shut. You turn to look at him -- really, truly cast your gaze upwards to meet his own -- to find that he is already looking back at you, eyes a brilliant, turbulent green.

“Whatever it is...ask. If I can, I’ll answer.” It looks like the words are being painfully extracted from his lips. “You’re upset. Just say it.”

_ Trust me,  _ his aura screams at you.  _ I’m telling you to trust me. _

This close to him, you can physically feel the hearty, herbal scent of myrrh work its way around you like a soft, worn cloak; a hand-knit blanket; a pair of oversized, burly, mountainous arms. Oh, how you wish that could be a reality.

You’ll never know if it can be, however, until you ask:

“Did we know each other, before? Before I...forgot.”

All around you, the forest seems to freeze in place. Muriel included.

“W-why would you ask something like that.” He blinks once, twice, mouth agape in surprise. “Why would you--”

“Because I want to  _ know.”  _ You think desperately of your deck mockingly shoving the Lovers into your open palm every time you so much as dared to  _ breathe  _ about Muriel. “I’m missing so much and I can’t bear the thought of not remembering you. I could never forget you, Muriel, I couldn’t.”

Overhead, clouds begin to close in, casting the world around you in dark and desolate sheets of grey. 

The man in front of you looks every part of the rumbling thunder that shakes the earth, the weepy boughs of the sky above ready to unload all her bountiful sorrow. “But you did.”

And there’s the truth.

You  _ had  _ forgotten him, unwillingly or not. You’d figured as much. Yet, it still hurts to be confronted with the reality that Muriel had meant something to you - in any way, no matter how small - before your accident; the reality that Muriel had to relive this fact over, and over, and over again with each oblivious knock at his front door.

“...I did,” you echo back to yourself, voice small and hollow, “didn’t I?”

You aren’t looking at him any longer -- you can’t bring yourself to. And it’s not like you’d be able, now that the downpour has begun in earnest. The crashing of rain is almost as loud as your heartbeat.

Silence overtakes the pair of you for a little while as you stew in this newly attained knowledge. You watch the rain come down in sheets, digging the toe of your shoes into the mud as you draw absentminded sigils into the Earth below.

“Who was I?” 

“...Good. You were good.”

Sighing, you deflate in relief. “And...who were you?”

Muriel scoffs darkly. “Not good.”

“Who -- or, what were  _ we?” _

He takes too long to respond. You’re forced to look back at him, then. He’s hiding beneath his bangs with only a quarter of his face bared to the world. “Do you have. The deck.”

Wordlessly, you draw it out of your pocket and hand it over to him, too intrigued by his request that you can’t even appreciate the simple fact that he knows you well enough now to assume that you have your cards on you. 

Once safely deposited in his hands, Muriel clumsily shuffles through the cards -- taking special care not to let any fall onto the ground -- and shields them with his large palms from the rain. He closes his eyes in concentration as he places a hand atop the stack and then draws the top-most card, turning it around to show you.

Twin pairs of serpentine eyes gaze back at you.

The Lovers, upright.

“Oh,” you exhale, as though you’ve just been stricken, “Oh, we. Oh.”

Even through the darkness of the storm, you can still catch a glimpse of Muriel’s flushed cheeks. “Like I said. You were good. You... _ are  _ good.”

“And so are you.” Before he has a chance to protest you grab the deck from his hands and replace it with your own, squeezing at the rough calloused skin that’s handled you with nothing but care, caressed you with nothing but gentleness. “You  _ are,  _ Muriel. You are.”

Lightning cracks above; the rain begins to pelt down even harder; the howling of the wind shrieks with deadly intensity, and yet, all you can focus on is the calm little oasis you’ve found in the warmth of the man before you.

His pupils shake a little as he speaks -- so lowly that you must struggle to hear him. “When you say it like that, I want to believe you.”

“So believe me.” You grip him tighter. “Believe me when I say that you are good. That I will never forget you again. That I want so badly to be how we once were. If you’ll have me.”

Muriel swallows. Hard. He’s struggling to retreat even further back behind his bangs but you refuse to let him run away from you; not this time. You follow him with your gaze until he understands that you have no intention to leave, regardless of his answer.

“...Iwantthattoo.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I-I said...I want that, too.”

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you think that this is the bravest thing Muriel has ever done. 

_ “Thank you,”  _ you whisper reverently, bringing his hands up to your lips so you can kiss each knuckle with all the love you hold for him. 

The rest of the storm is spent with your fingers interlocked, sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the log as you dwell on a lifetime of memories that you will never remember.

That’s alright. With the familiar weight of Muriel’s hand in your own, his furnace-like body heat warming you from the inside-out, you find yourself realizing that you’ve got a whole other lifetime ahead of you to make new ones.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hi there! thank you for reading<3  
for those of u that have been following along with the series so far, you'll see i made some changes!! new name, new description, and even a couple of helpful notes c: this is no longer just a dumpsite for all of my mountain man drabbles, but instead a (very loosely) organized, chronological story! i am excited to see where it goes and i hope u are too..! ^^  
my tumblr is [@myrrheart](https://myrrheart.tumblr.com) and i take headcanon requests and prompts!


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